Starting on the joints

Planing is now finished for a while, and this is the result:

Or beter said, the other side of the result. It's not waste! Someone in the neighbourhood is interested in my shavings and wants them for smoking meat.

But now the next job is the joinery. I need to attach the legs to the rails. I think I haven't yet shown the design of this table, but I keep it as a surprise for a while.

These are going to be bridle joints. After marking out, I use a backsaw to cut the sides.

Then I chop out the corners of the waste area. Just to give myself some room for the next step.

Chopping out the waste with a wide chisel. This is a pretty rough operation. I work in thin layers, and from both sides to avoid spelching the other edge. Last cut is with the chisel in the marking line.

And then smoothing out the cut with my new paring chisel. No hammers or mallets for this one. This is a brilliant chisel, long and very thin. The back was slightly hollow, so it was very easy to sharpen. Other old chisels often have convex backs. To get them reasonably flat is always a chore. But not so on this one.

I check the flattness of the joint with a small square, and correct where necessary with the paring chisel. Using a router plane would be a possibility too, but it works fine this way.